U.S. considers dipping flag at opening ceremony

Reuters via Yahoo News ^ | 7/26/12 | Steve Keating

[Kartographer]

The United States may break with a controversial tradition and dip its flag to Britain's leaders at the opening ceremony for the London Olympics, U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) CEO Scott Blackmun said on Thursday.

[sarasota]

Obama taking advantage of all the bad press related to Romney?

[the scotsman]

No it dosent hurt, but then again its not the truth.
Only to ignorant idiots ignorant of history.

[rcrngroup]

If the flag bearer is a patriot, they won’t dip.

That's a very good point. Whoever is carrying the American flag (male or female) should have some balls & patriotic principles, and should simply carry the flag held high, irregardless of what the USOC weenies tell them to do. I am just amazed at how much bullsh_t crap that American citizens do simply because some politically pandering schmuck tells them to do it. So basically I will hold the flag bearer responsible for whether they dip the flag or not, not some weenies at USOC!

[capt B]

America and TRUE Americans BOW to NO ONE BUT THEIR GOD

[Cowboy Bob]

We’re on British soil, so I don’t think I have an issue with this. It would be done out of respect for the host country, not to demean us.

It might be interesting to learn where the tradition began - the 1908 LONDON Olympics!

[NFHale]

“...April 18, 1775, on the eve of the Revolutionary War after a British major ordered John Adams, John Hancock, and those with them to disperse...”

I understand the sentiment expressed in your post, but Adams and Hancock were not there on the Green when British Major John Pitcairn ordered Lexington Militia Captain John Parker and his 77 Massachusetts Militiamen to disperse.

Adams and Hancock were in a carriage getting out of Dodge, so to speak because there was a price on their heads.

Parker ordered his men “Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”

Parker’s cousin Jonas Parker was bayonetted to death in that engagement; later on, after the withdrawal from the Green, Parker’s men and other converging Militia units shot the living hell out of the government, err, “British” troops in a running gun battle from Concord back to Boston.

Just a minor correction, good brother.

And just think...it started over Gun Control then, too.

[NFHale]

“...Whoever is carrying the American flag (male or female) should have some balls & patriotic principles, and should simply carry the flag held high, irregardless of what the USOC weenies tell them to do. ...”

Realistically, it’ll be some fresh-faced kid just out of the gov-indoctrination centers who has been taught how evil, racist, awful, and terrible his/her country is - especially if it’s a white kid - and will do as instructed because they don’t know any better, and to offend ANYBODY (other than their own kind) in any way is the single most awful, terrible, horrible thing they could ever do.

I think folks don’t realize just how far the other side has gone and how much they’ve accomplished in the last few decades in deconstructing the country and our kids.

I hope you are right and I am wrong, but...well, just look at what those very same fresh-faced kids helped elect in 2008, despite the evidence showing that it wasn’t such a good idea to do so.

But yeah - I would LOVE to see a Patriot kid defiantly just hold Old Glory high and smile sweetly at the camera.

We may have ELECTED a dip, but Americans shouldn’t ever dip our flag to anyone.

Hell, with all the American blood, lives, money, aid, and support we’ve given to help the world, they should be dipping their flags to us as we pass by.

[ScottinVA]

Don’t dip the flag... dip Obama.

[rcrngroup]

Realistically, it’ll be some fresh-faced kid just out of the gov-indoctrination centers who has been taught how evil, racist, awful, and terrible his/her country is - especially if it’s a white kid - and will do as instructed because they don’t know any better, and to offend ANYBODY (other than their own kind) in any way is the single most awful, terrible, horrible thing they could ever do.

I think folks don’t realize just how far the other side has gone and how much they’ve accomplished in the last few decades in deconstructing the country and our kids.

I think you're exactly correct on that. 80+ years of hardcore socialist indoctrination, slamming America, slamming white people, slamming Christianity, slamming Israel, promoting every satanic socialist ideology & agenda, homosexuality, islamic doctrines, and we now have entire generations who are completely ignorant of anything but their socialist indoctrination. God help us!

[OneWingedShark]

Why does 0bama BREAK WITH TRADITION at every turn? Because he HATES America, that’s why. I say if it’s ‘tradition’, don’t CHANGE it. But of course he can’t resist _____ING US IN THE _SS ALL THE TIME.

The tradition we really ought to break is differing to the Government; there are so many in government that work against the actual law and yet are treated as law that it is disgusting.

[Kartographer]

Anytime you want to come over and be rude here just come on over. We’ll see if we can arrange the same welcome Andy Jackson give those polite Scots down to New Orleans.

[NFHale]

“...80+ years of hardcore socialist indoctrination,...”

Well, the bright spot is this; WE survived it, and we teach our kids the truth of things regarding their country, their people, and their faith.

I’ve coached baseball for many years, and I never let an opportunity to point out the heritage, culture, and history of the game and the country to the kids go by without using it as a teaching example. You wouldn’t believe how many parents thank me for it. Does it make a difference? I think so, yes. We’ll see.

We all have a job to do; our six-foot personal sphere of influence actually goes a lot further than we realize when we actually take the time to use the talents God gave us.

If not us, then who?

What is that quote from Edward Hale: “I am only one, but I AM one. I can’t do everything, but I can do One thing, and the one thing I can do, I will do.”

Or words to that effect...

[NFHale]

Guys...

Rudeness aside - one team, one fight.

At the end of the day, the enemy is out there, not in here.

They hate the scotsman, HKMk23, Kartographer, and all the rest of us with equal malice.

[Kartographer]

True, but I also know that they keep a place on the White House unpainted so the scorch marks show. I think of that as not just history, but good policy.

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names. John F. Kennedy

[NFHale]

“...True, but I also know that they keep a place on the White House unpainted so the scorch marks show. I think of that as not just history, but good policy...”

Understood, friend.

But the scotsman isn’t the enemy. He’s a brother from across the sea, fighting the same *ssholes we are, just with a different accent - and got pissed at something said, like we all do occasionally.

One team, one fight.

[myself6]

Whatever..

Churchill’s UK, held on bravely in the face of the Germany’s advance, however, they would have ultimately been invaded and occupied and most likely slaughtered because they would have refused to submit.

Fact is, without the US entering that war the allies would have been defeated. Maybe you can attribute that to simple greater numbers or maybe you can attribute it to the fighting spirit of the Americans. If America was less than it was would they have made a difference? Wont know... Doesn’t matter...

Now... Both countries have willingly given up what the Germans couldn’t take from them. Both countries have submitted to the tyranny of socialism with nearly a peep of objection much less a stone thrown or a weapon fired in anger. We have wasted the blood those men bled into the dirt. We made their sacrifice meaningless.

None of us deserve to get angry over some perceived slight on the same people we dishonor every day we allow our nations to delve deeper into tyranny. Save your outrage for the tyrants, direct your anger at them. Maybe one day we will all raise ourselves to level of those who risked everything to free themselves and their countrymen. Then, we will have earnd the right to fight over whos ancestors were more valiant and who actually saved the world.

[the scotsman]

Nope.

The Germans could not have successfully invaded Britain, even a win in the BoB wouldnt have assured a successful landing (as the Royal Navy was still the world’s biggest and most powerful navy). With no America, what would have resulted is a stalemate. We couldnt have won, but we wouldnt have lost either.

The Germans failed at Britain’s ‘weakest’ point (summer to late 1940) to defeat us, either in the air or at sea, and by 1941 onwards, slowly but surely, we were stronger than we were after Dunkirk.

And I will point out that Canada was our biggest supplier of arms and material in WW2. Not America, as popular myth has it.

[Colonel_Flagg]

"Realistically, it’ll be some fresh-faced kid just out of the gov-indoctrination centers who has been taught how evil, racist, awful, and terrible his/her country is - especially if it’s a white kid - and will do as instructed because they don’t know any better, and to offend ANYBODY (other than their own kind) in any way is the single most awful, terrible, horrible thing they could ever do."

"Two-time Olympic champion fencer Mariel Zagunis (Beaverton, Ore.) was today selected to lead the 529-member 2012 U.S. Olympic Team into Friday's (July 27) Opening Ceremony as flag bearer, as announced today by the United States Olympic Committee. Zagunis was chosen by a vote of fellow members of Team USA.

"I'm extremely humbled by this incredible privilege," said Zagunis. "As an athlete, I can't imagine a higher honor than to lead Team USA into the Olympic Games, which are the pinnacle of sport and a platform for world peace. I am tremendously proud to represent my sport, our team and, most importantly, the United States of America."

"I'd like to congratulate Mariel on this tremendous honor," said USOC CEO Scott Blackmun. "It's especially fitting in the year of the 40th anniversary of Title IX, when Team USA for the first time in history has more women than men, that Mariel receive the extraordinary honor that is carrying our nation's flag into this celebration of humanity."

Since becoming the first U.S. fencer to win gold at an Olympic Games in a hundred years with her podium finish in 2004, Zagunis has been virtually unstoppable. The top-ranked women's saber fencer in the world, Zagunis won gold as a 19-year-old at the Athens Games in 2004, and went on to defend her title in Beijing before taking the individual world championship titles in 2009 and 2010. During the 2011 competition schedule, she added seven individual international medals, including silver at the world championships and gold at the Pan American Games. In 2012, she has added eight international medals.

Zagunis is the third fencing athlete to serve as flag bearer. Norman Armitage carried the flag in both 1952 and 1956, and Janice Lee Romary held the honor in 1968.

Zagunis will compete in the individual sabre competition on Aug. 1."

http://www.oregonlive.com/olympics/index.ssf/2012/07/oregons_mariel_zagunis_will_be.html

We'll see what she decides to do. We're watching.

[the scotsman]

Well, that’ll teach you not to attack and burn Toronto.

[the scotsman]

LOL.

Love to, New Orleans, as a blues fanatic and jazz lover, fascinates me.

p.s Jackson was a (Ulster) Scot himself.

[NFHale]

She is a beautiful young American woman. Wow.

Hope she remembers she’s an American first and doesn’t dip the flag.

A sword fightin’ babe... gotta love it!!!

[Colonel_Flagg]

Couldn’t agree more. And I share your thoughts about Old Glory. It should dip to no one.

[NFHale]

My old man, WWII Airborne, would flip if he were alive and heard this. His brothers (both in the Pacific) would too.

And it’s no slight against England; it’s just OUR tradition, OUR culture, and OUR heritage that we don’t do this.

And we have an admin and his little subversives trying everything they possibly can to urinate on our traditions.

It’s just one more despicable thing in a long train of despicable things, by contemptible people.

[Colonel_Flagg]

As would my late father-in-law (combat-wounded WW2 Navy) and my late father (Army National Guard).

Traditions mean things. Words mean things. Above all, actions mean things. This is what the current gang of thugs squatting in the People’s House don’t understand.

[Kartographer]

"Well, that’ll teach you not to attack and burn Toronto."

Just shows the feeling is mutual. LOL

[Kartographer]

"p.s Jackson was a (Ulster) Scot himself."

Just goes to show no one is prefect. ;-)

[NFHale]

Traditions are what make a people a People, and a country a Nation.

Oh, the left knows it very well; that’s why they’re trying so hard to erase it.

They had good teachers - Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler.

You erase the traditions, history, and culture, it’s easier to re-make it into something else.

They’re in for a rude awakening here.

[rcrngroup]

She is a beautiful young American woman. Wow.

Hope she remembers she’s an American first and doesn’t dip the flag.

A sword fightin’ babe... gotta love it!!!

.
Right.

Since it apparently is already being considered by the USOC or recommended by some apologetic American committee or perhaps suggested by phat ass mabelle michelle, my prediction is that Mariel Zagunis will....

1) Dip the flag if she is told by the committee to do so.

2) Or may dip the flag even if she is not told to do so, just because of the socialist anti-American indoctrination that is pervasive in America, and she likely has already bought into the socialist, liberal, apologetic mind set even as an American athlete.

3) And I doubt very much that either Russia or China or most other countries even go thru this ridiculous heart-wrenching, soul-searching hysterics on whether to dip their flags or not.

[Hoffer Rand]

The same gang of idiots that doesn't Americans chanting "USA! USA! USA!"

This is brought to us by the same idiots who had our National Anthem arranged in a "less militaristic" manner for medals' ceremonies. They've been doing this for the last several Olympics. When the Anthem gets to "rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air" it switches to voilins and flutes and gets really soft. It sounds awful.

[NFHale]

I hear you, man..sadly.

[Colonel_Flagg]

And I doubt very much that either Russia or China or most other countries even go thru this ridiculous heart-wrenching, soul-searching hysterics on whether to dip their flags or not.

Perhaps that's because none of those countries are the greatest nation in the history of the planet.

[Milton Miteybad]

How “controversial” is this tradition, anyway? I am unaware of any difference of opinion on this point of U.S. flag etiquette. Who, exactly, finds this procedure “controversial,” and when did this “controversy” start, anyway?

[Kartographer]

No time for jazz I was thinking of taking you on a run exploring some of the natural beauty and history of the Louisanna Delta. :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsRK3DNoa_Q

[ConorMacNessa]

I checked with the American Legion Flag Expert on the question whether it is ever proper to dip the U.S. Flag while marching in parade. Here is his response:

Thomas -


Flag Code section 8 states: "No disrespect should be shown to the flag of the United States of America; the flag should not be dipped to any person or thing. Regimental colors, State flags, and organization or institutional flags are to be dipped as a mark of honor."

Sincerely,

MICHAEL D. BUSS
Deputy Director
A/C&Y Division
The American Legion

Seems perfectly clear to me. 　



Genuflectimus non ad principem sed ad Principem Pacis!

Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. (Isaiah 49:1 KJV)

[Phoenixmatthias]

The law against dipping the flag is a part of the US Flag code. I’ve read so many other articles about how it’s “complicated”.

No, it’s not. We the American people simply do NOT dip our flag to anyone or anything.

If other people don’t like that than tough.

[myself6]

Stalemate means loss, in the context of WWII.

The first nation to light off a nuke (of the fission only variety) may very well have been Germany in that case, not the US. And I have a good idea where it may have been used.

[Kartographer]

The only thing making it ‘complicated’ is that damn usurping British subject posing as President.

[the scotsman]

Much of the ‘US’ nuclear programme came from Britain.

In 1940, we handed for nothing all our nuclear secrets/research to you. Britain had already developed its own programme in 1940, and in 1941-42, post American entry, worked with you. Had America not entered the war, we would have built our own atomic bomb, using Canada as a base.

The Manhattan Project was an allied project. The idea that America alone built the bomb is wrong, bad history made worse by tv and film and lazy media.

[rcrngroup]

And I doubt very much that either Russia or China or most other countries even go thru this ridiculous heart-wrenching, soul-searching hysterics on whether to dip their flags or not.

Perhaps that's because none of those countries are the greatest nation in the history of the planet.

We certainly started off that way... One Nation Under God, the greatest nation in the history of the world. Unfortunately the socialists & new world order bigots & hate God crowd & hate America crowd, & demoRATs & RINOs have done everything they can to destroy America and turn it into 0dumb0's personal Zimbabwe.

Even with the sordid, bloody history of communism & oppression, unfortunately Russia & China probably have a greater percentage of their people who feel strongly about their country, than we do here in the U.S. If these countries don't feel compelled to dip their flags, why do we have apologists in the USOC who feel compelled to dip our flag. A sad indictment for what USED to be the greatest nation in the world.

[LUV W]

Amen to all your posts here!

[Marathoner]

I have two uncles, one of which was a POW in Germany during WW2, and the other one fought in Korea. I'm sure both will be spinning in their graves if this crap actually happens. It's a GD outrage!

BTW, both were Southern Democrats, back when at least part of that party didn't hate America.

[knife6375]

Your kidding right?
I guess you do not know anyone that is serving or has served in the US military!!!!!!!!!

[Colonel_Flagg]

A sad indictment for what USED to be the greatest nation in the world.

Meaning no disrespect, do you have another one in mind? I don't let Baraq al-Husayn bin Obama define my country for me.

[publius911]

Another reason to ignore the koranimal-controlled UN-ympics

[Dahoser]

Like everything else the left doesn’t like, not dipping the flag became controversial when they said so because the left has learned that Boobus America will agree that whatever follows controversial is bad.

[AngelesCrestHighway]

I won't be surprised if our "Dip President" orders the flag to be dipped...

[ConorMacNessa]

Damn right, Colonel! That Marxist maggot will never define America. This is my Country and I want it back from the Leftists, atheists and perverts who are systematically undermining our basic Freedoms!





Genuflectimus non ad principem sed ad Principem Pacis!

Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. (Isaiah 49:1 KJV)

[Colonel_Flagg]

You, my FRiend, are a good man. Thank you for your service and welcome home.

[Weirdad]

You should document your claim that Canada supplied more arms and material. No way. All the arms and material brought to Europe and used by American forces were arms and materials supplied on your behalf. You DID count that, right?

[the scotsman]

I was referring to arms and material purely supplied to Britain and used purely by Britain. Trying to include stuff used by American troops fudges the issue.

Despite Lend Lease, Canada actually supplied more arms and material 1939-45 to us than the US did. That is not to say of course that the US didnt supply us with a great deal 1941-45 via Lend Lease.

Canada also gave Britain $6 BILLION during WW2 via ‘Mutual Aid’, which was Canada’s Lend Lease scheme.

And Britain GAVE America $12B in ‘reverse lend lease’ from Jan 1942 to Sept 1945, a lend lease now almost forgotten by both the US and UK.

America also received $10B or so in reverse lend lease from the USSR, Australia and New Zealand.